Lead With Ideas Not by Controlling Information

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric summed up the current era of leadership perfectly when he described leadership in the current age in the following way:

“…you will have to lead with ideas, not by controlling information.”

What Welch meant was that in the connected world we now live in, knowledge is no longer easily hidden from people and this has forever changed our attitudes towards information. It has changed our desire for information – we want it now. It has changed the way we share information – think how quickly news spreads around the world. It has also changed our attitude towards hoarding information, with such easy access to it – as soon as we no longer have it we disengage from people who hoard it often and waste time guessing what is going on. With our current tech landscape – information is moving more quickly and seamlessly than ever before.

Controlling information is dangerous because it leads to misinterpretation, misinformation and ultimately mistakes.

Andy guest wrote this post for Pomelle, check out the full article here